


keep talkin', whoa, keep talkin'

by JessJesstheBest



Category: Glee
Genre: A Glee fic? In 2021? It's more likely than you think, AU, Beta'd by people I don't deserve, First Meetings, Fluff, I'm not sorry, M/M, Mechanic Kurt Hummel, mechanic AU, this is incredibly indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29144352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessJesstheBest/pseuds/JessJesstheBest
Summary: “Well I hope you can help me, Kurt, because I have no idea what I’m doing.”Kurt did laugh this time, light and breathy. “Well luckily for you, Blaine, I do. What seems to be the problem?”Or Kurt is a mechanic and Blaine needs car help. That's it, that's the fic.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	keep talkin', whoa, keep talkin'

Kurt absently wiped the oil off his hands with the rag he kept tucked at his belt. He circled, deliberately, as he looked over the engine of a 1973 Camaro. He didn’t often get to work on the old classic cars – an honor usually bestowed upon the more seasoned mechanics – but everyone in the shop had seen this one enough that it no longer held the allure for most of them. They were bored of this car and the annoying owner so Kurt got to work on it.

Not like there was much he could do for it: this car was simply not built to live for forty-five years. They could tune her up and fix the wear and tear but she was always going to break down and need to come back in. It would probably do the guy more sense to sell it to someone who could take care of it themselves. For someone where the fixing was half the joy in the owning. 

But Kurt would be out of a job then so maybe not.

“What was wrong with it last time?” Kurt called out to the rest of the shop, talking to everyone and no one – whoever could answer him fastest.

“Starter,” answered George without looking away from the pump he was cleaning. “But it doesn’t help that the fan’s held together with rubber bands and paper clips.”

“I’m going to assume you’re exaggerating,” Kurt said with a sigh, but leaned in to check the alternator.

Sure enough, most of the belts were worn to shit. He sighed again. He hoped the lifts weren’t full, he didn’t want to have to get down on a creeper. 

“Kurt!” his boss, Jimmy, called from the office. “Leave that old junker alone for a second – we’ve got a customer.”

“Coming!” Kurt called, relieved he had a reason to put off crawling underneath the car. He wiped his hands again as he headed for the reception area.

Jimmy was there waiting with a curly-headed guy a couple inches shorter than Kurt which meant he was a lot shorter than Jimmy. He looked up at them both with an earnest pleasantness that made him look like a little kid. Kurt bit back a smile.

“You called, boss?”

Jimmy grunted, gesturing to the guy. “Mr. Anderson here is having trouble. See to it, would ya?”

Kurt saluted sarcastically and Jimmy grunted again before turning around and heading back into his office.

“Sorry about him,” Kurt told Mr. Anderson. “He usually has his daughter on reception to handle the customer service side of things but she just went off to grad school and he hasn’t gotten around to replacing her yet.”

Anderson smiled over at him. He was wearing a blue flower short sleeved button up topped with a yellow bowtie, making him look like springtime. “Not a problem! I don’t mind grumpy old guys so much. Very much hope to be one one day.”

Kurt couldn’t bite back another smile, a light breath of air escaping him as a laugh. He couldn‘t imagine anyone less likely to turn into a grumpy old man than this ball of sunshine in front of him.

Anderson’s smile widened at Kurt and he stuck his hand out, arm straight for a handshake. “My name’s Blaine.”

Kurt smiled, taking it. “Kurt.”

“Well I hope you can help me, Kurt, because I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Kurt did laugh this time, light and breathy. “Well luckily for you, Blaine, I do. What seems to be the problem?”

  
  


Blaine drove a 2008 Ford Focus and he needed to make sure it would survive a drive to Ohio.

“Ohio?” Kurt asked, cocking his head. “Where?”

Blaine’s smile was sheepish. “Uh, Westerville.”

Kurt huffed a short laugh. “I’m from Lima.”

And Blaine perked right up. “No way!”

“It’s true,” Kurt said, pulling the hatch inside the car to raise the hood. “Born and raised.”

“Small world,” Blaine said. Kurt hummed.

“Why do you think your car might have trouble with the trip?”

Blaine was back to looking sheepish. “I haven’t used my car in a while? It’s just been sitting in my parking space behind my building since…” he trailed off, his eyes narrowing as he tilted his head in thought. It was very cute.

He winced. “Shit, last April? Maybe?”

Kurt whistled. “Why are you even paying for a spot?”

“The spot came with the apartment,” Blaine sighed. “And I need the car for trips like this, but I don’t really need it in the city, you know? More trouble than it’s worth.”

Kurt hummed again, doing a cursory glance over everything to make sure nothing was visibly snapped or cut or something.

“It started, though?” Kurt asked. “You’re supposed to turn your car on a couple times over the winter to make sure nothing happens to the battery but if you got it to start and drove it here you should be fine.”

“I just wanted to be safe,” Blaine said, looking embarrassed.

Kurt smiled at him. “Nothing wrong with that! I’ll give her a full once over, rotate the tires, change the oil, all that. You’ll get to Ohio no problem.”

“Oh,” Blaine said, his smile warming up again. “Good! Uh, should I wait here or…”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Kurt smiled softly. “It’s gonna be a couple hours. When were you hoping to hit the road?”

“Not until this weekend,” Blaine said. “I can come back.”

“Great!” Kurt smiled, looking over at the big clock in the back of the garage. “You want to pick her up around 6? Is that okay?

Blaine’s smile was blinding. His eyes crinkled up and he bounced a little on the toes of his wingtip shoes. “Perfect!”

Blaine was very cute and Kurt was definitely going to be thinking about him all day. But he had other stuff to do.

As far as Kurt could tell, there wasn’t a ton wrong with the car. It definitely should have been winterized in some way but there didn’t appear to be any long term or hugely labor intensive consequences. Kurt could definitely have this done for Blaine by 6.

He’d get back to it. He liked Blaine, but Mr. Camaro was known to tip extremely well so Kurt was going to handle that first.

Kurt Hummel never thought he’d be working in a garage well into his twenties. He helped his dad at their shop in high school, but it was never his long term plan to be a mechanic. And it still wasn’t! Hopefully one day he’d have his own fashion line and he’d be well paid enough to do design full time but, as of right now, mechanics make more than any other service job he could find in the city. Way more than the singing waiter gig Kurt had originally wanted.

And for good reason: crawling around underneath the camaro to replace the belts was not easy or fun.

It did mean that by the time Blaine came back for his car later that day, Kurt was dirty and exhausted enough to have rolled the top half of his coveralls to his waist, exposing his grease stained tank top and collarbone. 

His hands, though, as always, were free of grime. He was still wiping them as he did a final check of Blaine’s car, singing distractedly under his breath. He wasn’t expecting Blaine’s approach, or for him to join Kurt with the harmony.

Kurt startled, almost dropping his rag. 

“Sorry!” Blaine said, reaching forward like he was going to try and help Kurt but stopping halfway through. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just, um,” he cleared his throat. “I love that song.”

Kurt, having recovered from the shock almost immediately, was hopelessly endeared. “Well it’s hard not to love P!nk.”

“Yeah,” Blaine answered, the smile from this morning coming back. “I sang a P!nk song in competition with my Glee club in high school.”

Kurt grinned back. “Wait… Glee club. Westerville.” Kurt looks Blaine up and down, half-teasing, half as an excuse to actually check him out. “Blaine, were you a Warbler?”

Blaine’s grin was blinding. “I was!”

Kurt laughed. “I should have known! You do have that sheen of an all-boys prep school on you.” Kurt kept smiling as Blaine looked down at himself as if to figure out what Kurt meant by that. “We competed against you,” Kurt continued. 

Blaine continued to look delighted by this and Kurt had to look away. Something about his smooth skin, his golden eyes, his energy of always being on the brink of song, made Kurt feel like he was looking into the face of someone Zues might have kidnapped in ancient Greece. Kurt himself was tempted to capture Blaine, just so he could keep a bit of that beauty for himself.

“So your car,” he started, rather than continue thinking weird thoughts about kidnapping. “You were right to bring her in: we did find some weak points in the fuel line, probably from freezing and unfreezing so many times in the winter. So we replaced that, rotated your tires, changed your oil, replaced your wiper fluid, all that good stuff.”

Blaine nodded as he listened, like everything Kurt was saying sounded correct to him. But whether that was because he knew anything about cars or because he trusted Kurt implicitly, he didn’t know.

“So,” Kurt said, looking at his hands as he wiped them again. “You can settle up your bill with Jimmy and you’re all set for Ohio.”

He looked over at Blaine again only to find that Blaine was already staring at him. Not at his face but at his hands and flickering over his arms which were admittedly well muscled thanks to all the manual labor. Like he said: working on cars is rough work.

When Blaine’s eyes did flick up to Kurt’s face he smiled, as if smiling was just his reflex, but his cheeks also did dust pink. And Kurt was so charmed he couldn’t stand it. 

“Thank you,” Blaine said. “I couldn’t ask for better service.”

Kurt smiled at him and this time it was Blaine who had to look away.

“Wow, uh,” he cleared his throat again. “There’s nobody else here.”

Kurt shrugged, tucking his hand rag back into his waist. “It’s the end of the work day. Most everyone else has gone home for the night.”

Blaine looked back at Kurt, a worried line creasing his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you here.”

Kurt waved him off. “I had other things I needed to get done anyway. And this way I can end my day on a high note.” And he winked at Blaine.

Blaine’s grin was slower this time. He took a step toward Kurt. “So it’s the end of your day now, too?”

“Just need to clean up and change out of my work clothes,” Kurt said, gesturing at himself. Blaine looked down at Kurt’s body and looked back up blushing again which was exactly Kurt’s intention. He smirked.

“You wouldn’t,” Blaine started taking another step toward Kurt. “You wouldn’t want to go to dinner with me, would you? Since you’re clocking out.”

Kurt grinned taking his own step forward. “As a matter of fact, I would.”

**Author's Note:**

> You ever just... watch season 1 of Glee and think about how Kurt probably knows a lot about cars? And how hot that is?  
> Just me?
> 
> [Rebloggable version](https://saywhatjessie.tumblr.com/post/642029408093421568/keep-talkin-whoa-keep-talkin)


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